


Chronicle

by shimotsuki



Category: Chalion Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-28
Updated: 2010-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-14 04:57:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/145611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shimotsuki/pseuds/shimotsuki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dy Lutez is dead.  What is left that Ista can do?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chronicle

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the "Gods' Delight" challenge at the chalion_ibra community on LiveJournal. Prompts were _pen,_ the Mother, and lines from Donne's "Song (Sweetest love, I do not go)".

_O how feeble is man's power,  
That if good fortune fall,  
Cannot add another hour,  
Nor a lost hour recall; _  
\--Song (Sweetest love, I do not go) 

  


* * *

  


**Chronicle**

  


_How shall I write of what I cannot speak?_

Ista’s hand shook, and the carefully trimmed point of her pen scraped against the paper until it snapped. Ink splattered. She cursed, under her breath—strong, harsh words that her simpering ladies-in-waiting would have been shocked to find that she knew—and set the pen aside to take up another.

And then she stopped and stared at the first pen, now leaking a little puddle of ink. A broken tool, beyond repair. Destined to be discarded.

Her grip tightened on the new pen, but she forced her fingers to relax. If she splashed too much ink on her nightdress, someone might decide to insist, ever so gently, that she not tire herself with writing any longer.

 _My children, there are things you do not know. Things you cannot know until you are grown. But I write them down now for you to find later, in case I do not live long enough to tell you myself._

Would the gods truly be so cruel as to take her children’s mother from them, when their father was already wasting away in his grief?

Ista rather feared They might. After all, she had already failed at her one gods-given chance to save the children that she had brought into this curse.

"Teidez," she whispered, brushing her finger along the edge of her letter. "Iselle. Forgive me."

~ . ~

She had been so certain that the scheme would work.

Especially because after Arvol’s first death, the grip of the curse had palpably weakened. Ista could see it in the lessening of the shadow that clung to the children, to Ias, to Orico and Sara. She could feel it in the clearing of her own mind.

But this— _this_ was not what was supposed to happen.

The doctor had already taken the body away, but a trail of water across the stones of the Zangre’s dungeons remained to mark its passage. Ista sat huddled on the floor with her arms wrapped around her knees, her breath coming in small panicked gasps.

How could brave, bright Arvol be dead?

This was _not_ supposed to happen. He was supposed to save them all.

She turned her head. Ias was slumped against the wall.

And his shadow was fading.

The very moment that the spark of Arvol’s soul had blinked out, never to light again, the shadow of the curse had darkened on Ias once more. But now it was fading.

Hope blazed up for one glorious instant, until Ista understood, and despair came crashing down again. The shadow was disappearing, not because the curse had somehow been broken after all, but because the Mother had left her—had taken back Her gift of second sight.

“Ias—” she gasped. If even the Mother had abandoned them, how could they ever hope to overcome the curse?

“Leave me.” Her husband’s voice was broken, and he did not look at her. “Just go.”

And so she had run through the empty midnight corridors of the Zangre, trailed by an astonished lady-in-waiting she had encountered on the second floor of the east wing (“My lady Royina, why does no one attend you?”), never once looking back.

~ . ~

Ias will not speak to me, thought Ista now, weeks later. The Mother has cast me aside. I have failed, and there is no one left for me to turn to.

But the children had no one at all, no one but her, no one to tell them the truth.

Ista could feel the curse spreading its poison daily, muddying her thoughts and halting her tongue. All the more reason, then, to write while she could still find the words.

She rubbed her tired eyes and dipped her pen into the inkwell.

 _By the time you read this, they will probably have told you that your mother was mad. That is partly, but not entirely, true. All I can do is beg you to read this letter, through to the end, before you decide whether to believe me._

When she finished the letter, she would hide it, so that no one could find it before the children were grown. Perhaps she could slip it inside one of the chests of cedar that already held silks and linens for Iselle’s trousseau.

She stared at the half-empty page before her, willing the right words to come.

~ . ~

Ista woke, tucked firmly into her bed. Lady dy Maroc, one of her least favorite attendants, was pulling back the curtains, and the sun was already quite high in the sky.

“Good morning, Royina,” came the usual cloyingly cheerful greeting. “Won’t you rise and take a little breakfast?”

Ista couldn’t remember going to bed. She must have fallen asleep at her writing table—

She got up with a lurch, pushing the covers aside. The table was bare, except for the pen with the broken point. A new inkstain marred the fine wood of its surface like a bruise.

“Where is the letter I was writing last night?” Her voice was hoarse from sleep and sharp with fear.

“Ah,” said Lady dy Maroc, “Lady dy Ajaras said you had fallen asleep writing and tipped the ink bottle over. The letter was ruined, so she dropped it in the fire after helping you to bed.”

“All the paper is gone,” said Ista tightly. “Have them bring more. And pens—that one is broken. And a new bottle of ink, of course.”

“Yes, yes,” said Lady dy Maroc, smiling brightly. “Whatever you like.”

But Ista rather suspected that no paper or ink or pens would be forthcoming.

Lady dy Maroc turned away to set out the breakfast. As fast as a snake might strike, Ista snatched up the pen and hid it in a drawer in the writing table.

Even a broken pen had to be better than no pen at all.

~ _fin_ ~


End file.
